Catherine Chiocchi
Arts Editor
When deadlines creep up on the Courant reporters and editors, the journalism room becomes a blur of crazed and anxious reporters, searching for an interesting graphic to add a visual appeal to an article. Sometimes, the usual picture or Photoshop graphic doesn’t fit the bill. In an attempt to spice up the aesthetics of our publication, while also adding a dash of humor, we turn to our go-to guy for a witty cartoon. Whenever he’s called upon, junior Ben Stryker willingly picks up his pen and churns out cartoon after cartoon to help us out.
“Cartoons are a combination of my two favorite things: art and comedy,” he said. “I enjoy being funny, so I love doing cartoons to express that.”
Ben started drawing cartoons for the Courant his sophomore year, thanks to some encouragement from his mother. “My mom’s the one who suggested I draw cartoons for the newspaper,” he said. “I had always enjoyed cartooning, but I hadn’t thought about doing it for the Courant until my mom brought up the idea.”
Last year, Ben approached the Courant staff and asked if he could do some freelance cartoon work, though he’s not technically a member of the journalism class. They jumped on the idea, and since then Ben has worked mostly with junior Features Editor Peter Lacerenza and junior Courant Online Managing Editor Sara McCloskey to get his cartoons published.
Ben usually works under very tight time constraints to produce his cartoons, and consequently many of them begin as “last-minute ideas.” One day, Ben found out he needed to do a cartoon to hand over to the Journalism room by the end of that night. “I had to go to Cross Country practice that day, so I used that time to cook up ideas,” Ben said. “Right after practice, I ran home to do the cartoon and then drove back to school to get it to the reporter. Luckily I made deadline, but there definitely were a lot of car rides back and forth between my house and the high school that day.”
To make his job a little easier, reporters will occasionally email him the article in need of the cartoon so the brainstorming can begin.
But other times, all he may need is a brief summary, in order to get the gist of the story.
Sometimes, Ben admits, his cartoons end up not being entirely relevant to the subject of the article. “One time, I was asked to do a ‘completely random’ cartoon, so I decided to draw one poking fun at Steve Irwin,” he said. “Apparently, the article was about sunbathing and tanning. Yeah, that one ended up getting rejected. For the record, I love Steve Irwin,” Ben added.
Ben plans to end his tenure as a freelance cartoonist by joining the Courant staff next year. “Mr. McAteer said that if I did Journalism next year I could be the resident cartoonist,” he said. “I know the class is hard work, but I think it will be a lot of fun.”
One thing is for certain: Ben’s cartoons have been a constant source of talent and humor across the Courant’s pages, and hopefully, he’ll keep us laughing for many issues to come.
